5 Steps to Optimise and Scale Your Business Processes

All micro businesses have them. Those little nagging tasks that when done, seem to come flying back onto your to-do list.

Those tasks are repetitive. They are “things” that you do regularly. Every day, week or month.

Have a think about your repetitive tasks.

They take a little of your time here and there. Overall, that can add up and distract you from what you really want to spend your time on. Work with your clients, develop your products, make money and ultimately have time OUTSIDE of your business, doing the things that you enjoy doing and being with your family.

Right now, your micro business may be slow and clunky. You miss emails or work long days and late nights to meet those tight deadlines you promised. This is frustrating and makes you feel anxious that you’ll miss something important, like an email that results in losing a sale to a competitor.

You’re in business to make sales. Get your processes optimised and you can build a SCALABLE BUSINESS to make more money, and, more importantly, spend your time being with your family.

Follow these steps to take your micro business from frustratingly slow and clunky to a smooth running, well-oiled, machine.

Here goes…

Step 1 – List your repetitive tasks

ALL of those tasks that you do regularly are most likely in your head, where only you know how your processes work. They are screaming “Get me outta here!”. Or maybe you are?!

Get back that headspace.

Here’s how:

1 Grab a piece of paper and a pen, or start a new document, however you like to do these things. Everyone has their own preference.

2 Then, list them all.

How much better do you feel just for getting them onto paper?

Now that you have a visual list of ALL your repetitive activities, we can go a little deeper and break down each of those tasks down into steps.

Step 2 – Document the actions needed to complete each repetitive task

Yes! For each task, you will need to document each action needed for that task to be complete, from start to finish.

Again, starting with a fresh piece of paper, choose a task and list all of the steps it takes to complete it from start to finish.

You now have a checklist, ready for the next time you work through that task. As you complete an action, tick it off.

Step 3 – Review Your Processes

This is where you can start to make a real difference to your micro business and your life, without that sounding too cheesy!

Now that you have all of your processes documented, you can take a good look at them and see where you need to make changes. Changes that will make the process easier, quicker and less painful for you.

Go through and highlight those steps that aren’t necessary, can be replaced or delegated to someone else. It may be your business, but that doesn’t mean you have to work on everything in it.

Wow! Now you see that you CAN DO LESS!

Less work, more fun. That’s what I like to see.

Step 4 – Set-up Automation

Next up, take a look at what you can automate.

Yes, you may have to pay subscription costs, or pay for apps and software. These tools will likely cost less than you charge for your time. If they do, use them, they are there to make your life easier and take care of your day-to-day business tasks FOR YOU.

Here are a few examples of how automation can help a micro-business:

An online scheduler, which takes away the to and fro to arrange appointments

Filters and rules for your inbox to get rid of spam instantly

Setting-up recurring invoices for retainer clients to reduce the time you spend on monthly invoicing

That’s just three that could help you out massively. There are so many more, take a look and find some that would fit your processes.

Step 5 – Delegate

And the last step is to delegate.

If there isn’t an app, tool, or software to automate your process, or it seems a bit too technical for you, then you can outsource.

When you’re the only one working in your business the hours available to you are limited.

Doing it all yourself can work for you in the beginning, but once established and you look to scale, or grow your income, you will need to share the workload.

That is where outsourcing works wonders. You can build a virtual team and have more business hours.

Having more than one Virtual Assistant work with you may seem scary if you’ve never outsourced before. I get that, which is why I have a TEAM of Virtual Assistants. I can take the tasks you want to outsource and delegate them to my team, managing the team, processes and tasks FOR YOU.

Get your tasks written down, processes reviewed, automated or outsourced and you will have a smooth running, well-oiled machine that gives you your time and energy back to be with your family, doing what you enjoy the most and making MORE SALES.